Schrödinger's Steve
by Book girl fan
Summary: The Mind-Flayer might be gone, but the aftereffects of torture are not.


They collapse to the ground together, a little huddle of four. Robin is just so relieved that these kids are alright, selfishly glad that they were safely away on a hilltop, not stuck on the mall like the rest of the kids. Sure, she's glad the others are safe, but these kids are hers. Hers and Steve's, her unexpected new best friend.

Robin leans further into their huddle, gripping the back of Erica's shirt to bring them even closer. Steve's got one arm around her, the other around Dustin, and his arms are pulling their little group tight. Eventually the paramedics will notice them and they'll have to let go, but now she just wants to breath in air that's not stale or thick with the scent of blood and pretend that if she grips tight enough, none of them will ever leave her.

Steve slumps sideways into Dustin, and she lets out a hysterical giggle at the thought of Steve letting his hair get messed up like that. Then Steve's arm falls from her shoulders and it doesn't seem quite so funny.

"Steve?" She hears Dustin ask, and their huddle shifts as Dustin pulls away from Erica to turn towards Steve. "Steve! Talk to me, buddy, say something!"

Steve isn't responding. Some time in the last few minutes his eyes have closed, and underneath all the blood and bruising he looks exhausted. Neither of them slept last night (_was it only last night?_) and they've spent hours today being held captive and tortured by evil Russians. He looks now way too much like he did then, limp and unresponsive.

On the list of terrifying things she's seen in the last twenty four hours, this one is still close to the top.

Dustin's still shouting, and now she is too, yelling at Steve to wake up and stop worrying the kids. Worrying her too, but she's not going to say that. Dustin's looking panicked enough as is, and Erica, who hadn't even lost her composure when stuck in a secret underground Russian base for an entire night, is sniffling suspiciously.

It's not making any difference. Steve's still unconscious.

Their shouting has attracted attention, and she can feel hands on her shoulders pulling her back, away from Steve. She fights, struggling out of their grip so she can stay close to Steve, but the hands keep pulling. "It's okay, it's okay!" She hears in her ear. "They're just trying to help."

It takes a while for the meaning to filter through, but once it does she lets the hands drag her backwards. The voice stays at her shoulder, a meaningless babble of words that she can't be bothered to try and work out, not while she is looking at Steve to make sure he hasn't stopped breathing. She's never seen CPR performed in real life, and she doesn't want to start tonight.

Finally they load him into a stretcher, then an ambulance, and it wheels away with lights flashing. Only then does the voice sink in enough for her to realise who it belongs to. "Nancy?" Her voice feels hoarse, and it takes her a moment to realise it's probably because she's been screaming at Steve for who knows how long. Her head shoots up and she looks around frantically, pushing Nancy away, because she hadn't been the only one screaming at Steve to wake up. "Dustin! Where's Dustin? Dustin!"

"He's fine!" Nancy exclaims, grabbing at her arms again. "He's fine, Mike's with him."

Robin relaxes.

"Erica's over with her brother and Max," Nancy continued in a voice that sounds like she's trying to be soothing, but is still too tense to hit the mark, "and Will and Jonathan are with their mom and El. We're safe now."

"No, we're not," Robin automatically corrects. She doesn't think she'll ever feel safe again.

Nancy breathes out, and Robin can feel the other girl's ribcage expanding. "No, we're not."

Robin lets out a broken laugh. "I thought he was an idiot. But now, he could be... he could be..." She can't say it. Her laugh turns into sobs, shaking her shoulders and making her throat clog with tears. It's not fair. They'd escaped the bunker, gotten away from the monster, and now it's all over, Steve still might not survive.

There's another pair of arms around her now, smaller than Nancy's but even more fierce. Curly hair falls into her eyes and Dustin is telling her, "He's not going to die, he's Steve Harrington! Last year he took on three demo dogs with a nail bat, and even after Billy beat him unconscious he still came with us until the tunnels to protect us. He can't die now!"

She has no idea what half those words mean, but it doesn't matter. She turns and returns Dustin's hug anyway.

Nancy's moved away, and she can feel both Wheelers' eyes on her but can't bring herself to care. Nancy might have done this before, but she's still new to this. She'll take the comfort where she can get it.

"Do you want a ride to the hospital?" Nancy asks.

Robin sniffs, pulling away from Dustin to wipe futilely at her eyes. "Yeah. Can you... Don't you need to stay?"

Nancy looks over to where the others are still gathered then back to Robin. She shakes her head once, decisively. "They don't need me right now. And I don't think you should be driving."

Robin shrugs, pulling herself to her feet, then holding out a hand to pull Dustin up too. "Doesn't really matter without a car."

Nancy purses her lips, then looks over towards the others again. "I'll be back."

She goes over to Jonathan, still with his arms around Will, and talks to him for a few minutes. Finally, after they share a lingering kiss that Robin has the urge to shield Dustin's eyes from, Nancy returns, Jonathan's car keys dangling from her finger. "Jonathan's staying with Joyce and El."

"I'm staying too," Mike says defiantly. He's wearing the stubborn look that seems to be a Wheeler trademark, and somehow even after everything that has happened this evening he still looks ready to fight. "El needs me."

Robin had forgotten he was there, too caught up in her emotions, and now she doesn't really care whether or not he wants to come. She just wants to move already, find out if Steve's okay. For a moment she wonders if maybe Dustin would want him there, just to have someone his age, but when she looks over at him he seems as keen to leave as she is.

Nancy must understand how much they both just want to get moving, because she doesn't bother arguing. "Fine. Stay with Mrs Byers. I'll tell Mom you're having a sleepover with Will." She heads for the car.

Robin is right behind her. Dustin stays behind, and she can hear him taking to Mike but can't make out what they're saying. Still, just as she and Nancy reach the car, he runs up behind her in time to skid to a stop beside the back door. "Can we go now?" he asks, and only then does Robin realise it's the first he's said in a while. She's become so used to his chatter in the background over the course of the last couple of days that she didn't even notice when it stopped. He really must be worried.

"We were only waiting on you, doofus," she tells him, and tries ruffling his hair. It doesn't feel right. That's what Steve does, and the action only makes his absence more noticeable.

She tries pulling the brim of his cap down instead. That feels better.

"Hey!" Dustin readjusts the cap, frowning at her. "Leave the hat alone."

"Do you want to see Steve or not?" Nancy is tapping her fingers against the side mirror, and Robin is suddenly reminded why she'd called her a priss. She looks so schoolmarm-ish, standing there judging them, and for a wild moment Robin wants to stick her tongue out at her. These kids are obviously a bad influence.

Then the words sink in, and all other thoughts vacate the premises. For a moment, she'd almost forgotten, too caught up in teasing Dustin to remember that Steve could be dying, and she's still here wasting time.

Her hands start to tremble.

Dustin opens the door to the back seat and climbs in, grabbing her hand and pulling her in afterwards. Nancy seems a little perturbed at having the front all to herself, but Robin's too busy gratefully clutching Dustin's hand to really care. She needs to feel connected right now, and she's probably hurting Dustin's fingers with how hard she's squeezing, but it's okay because he's doing the same.

The ride to the hospital feels agonisingly slow and all too fast at the same time. As much as she wants to know if Steve is okay, she's terrified to know for sure. What if he's not alright? What if they are greeted at the hospital by a nurse saying they're sorry, it was too late?

She's only just found out that Steve is no longer the jerk she knew in high school. He found out her biggest secret and treated him the same. She can't lose him now.

"I kind of don't want to get there, you know?" she whispers to Dustin. She feels bad, sharing this with a kid, but their night has already included flesh monsters and underground Russian spy bases. He's heard worse than this, and these emotions are too big to keep to herself. "If we don't hear anything, I can pretend he's alright."

Dustin nods sagely, hand still gripping hers tight. "Like Schrödinger's cat. If you don't open the box, the cat is both dead and alive." His face pales.

"We can call him Schrödinger's Steve," she jokes weakly. It's a pretty pathetic joke, but she's desperate for anything that will get that look off Dustin's face. He's too young to be that terrified, and joking her way through trauma has been the staple of Robin's night so far. Why stop now? "And Steve won't know what we're talking about."

Dustin snorts a laugh, and if it's a bit wet, well, at least he's not sobbing. She would not have any idea how to deal with that – these are Steve's kids, he's the one who knows how to handle things like kids who don't stop crying. She'll just be the cool aunt or something.

The car stops. Dustin's hand is tight around hers.

Now that they're here, she doesn't want to get out. She doesn't want to know. Her mouth opens, ready to beg for Nancy to take them back, take them away, anywhere that's not here, but then Dustin opens the door and their joined hands mean she has no choice but to follow him.

How are these kids so young yet so brave?

They go inside to the waiting room, telling the nurse on duty that they're there for Steve Harrington. She asks what relation they are, and Robin doesn't know what to say. How does she explain any of this to someone who doesn't know? Steve is her coworker, her best friend, her companion in torture, her fellow monster fighter. How does she even begin to explain that?

She looks over at Nancy, but Nancy looks similarly lost. Robin doesn't even know if Nancy considers Steve a friend, or just her ex. She's suddenly desperately curious to know what Nancy thinks of her.

No, she does not have a crush on Nancy Wheeler.

Dustin cuts right through her gay panic, pushing past her to tell the nurse that Steve is practically his older brother, stood up for him and his friends, and Steve didn't have any other family in town, so can they please see him, pretty please? The kid is selling it for all he's worth, and the nurse is visibly melting.

"Alright, young man, the doctor's just in with him now, but as soon as he's settled you can go in and see him, alright?"

Dustin absolutely beams at her, and Robin fiercely hopes that this Suzie knows how lucky she is.

They retreat to the hard plastic chairs, perching on them like birds ready to startle at the slightest sound. The nurse watches them from the counter for a few minutes, eyes kind, but then is distracted by incoming patients and turns away.

Robin reaches for Dustin's hand again. She'd dropped it when he'd pushed past her earlier, but now reality was closing in on her again and she needs to know someone else understands, someone else knows what it's like to worry for Steve.

She doesn't look at Nancy. Nancy is amazing, strong as diamond and just as pretty, but also terrifying. She faced down a speeding car with nothing but a pistol. She fought monsters like she does this every day. She broke up with Steve Harrington, twice, and didn't care how unpopular it made her. She found out the government killed her best friend and spread that truth to the world, shining a spotlight on all their secrets.

That last one is the most terrifying of all. Nancy has a reputation for finding secrets, and Robin has a lot of secrets to hide.

Even though she doesn't look at Nancy, she can still feel Nancy's eyes on her. It makes her nervous, and not just because Nancy is terrifying. There's also that familiar fluttery feeling in her stomach that is the last thing she wants to be feeling right now, yet it won't go away.

Of all the girls to have a crush on, why did it have to be Nancy Wheeler?

This also makes the second time she's fallen for a girl who's fallen for Steve. Does she have an oddly-specific-and-also-kind-of-pathetic type? Because if so, she needs to get out of Hawkins as soon as possible. If the monster they'd faced tonight wasn't enough reason, surely somewhere in the world there has to be a cute girl who hasn't met Steve, because he may be the best friend she's never had but this is ridiculous.

"Why are they taking so long?" Dustin bursts out, jarring her from contemplating her dismal romantic prospects. "It was just his head, right? It's been hours now, we should be able to see him!"

"It hasn't been hours," Nancy corrects him. It comes out snappy, and she must notice because her next words are much softer. "It's only been forty minutes. It took longer than that last time."

"How long did it take?"

"There was a last time?"

Their voices overlap, sounding very loud in the late night atmosphere of the Hawkins Hospital waiting room. The nurse at the front desk looks around at them again. Robin doesn't care.

On some level she'd known that this wasn't the first time this had happened. Everyone at Hawkins High remembered Steve "The Hair" Harrington, King Steve, coming in to school one morning with his face beaten to a pulp. Rumours abounded as to what had happened, but most people agreed Billy Hargrove must have been responsible. No one else would actually have fought Steve. It just – didn't happen.

Even without that, Dustin's excitement that Steve had managed to win a fight was proof enough that _something_ must have happened before. She had picked up scattered bits and pieces from what the others had said, and even though it's not enough to make giant flesh absorbing monsters and girls with superpowers actually make _sense_, it's enough to know that some of the weirder things that had happened over the last couple of years had _some_ kind of explanation behind them.

Yet somehow none of this is enough for her not to have a slimy feeling in her gut at the revelation that this is not the first time Steve has had such a serious head injury he ended up in hospital. Not even the fact that she didn't even really know him then is enough to make that feeling go away. If Nancy looking at her is causing butterflies, this feeling is more like vultures. Giant, circling vultures, just waiting for the opportunity to swoop down and tear strips out of her insides.

"Last time it took us nearly an hour just to get seen, and then two more before I could go in and see Steve." Nancy's voice is lower now, and she looks towards the nurse before she speaks, even though the nurse has turned away again. She's probably got better things to do than listen in on a couple of teenagers. "This time shouldn't take as long."

Nancy must be some kind of prophet, because it's only moments later that the doctor comes out and they are shuffled down the hall to Steve's room. One of the beds is curtained off, with faint sounds of snoring drifting out, but they hurry past that one and see Steve lying on the other bed with his eyes closed.

His eyes open as they get closer, and he levers himself up on one elbow. "Robin? Dustin? What happened? You guys didn't find another monster without me, did you?"

Robin stops. After all this time worrying about Steve, she doesn't know what to do now that she's here in front of him. She's only known him for a few _weeks_. They fought a _monster_ together. She hated him in high school, and he never noticed her, but now he knows her biggest secret and she thinks he might be the best friend she's ever had. How does she even begin to think about all that?

Dustin apparently has no such hesitations. He pushes past Robin and runs straight to Steve's side, immediately wrapping him in a hug. Steve hugs him back, and the look on his face is so soft Robin kind of wants to cry.

Finally, Dustin pulls away, only to immediately hit Steve in the arm. "Don't scare me like that, man! I thought you were dead!"

Steve tugs him closer and ruffles his hair. "And what, you decided to give up showers in protest? Dude, I can still see monster pieces in your hair." He wipes his hand exaggeratedly on the sheets, the movement awkward because he's still not sitting fully upright .

Dustin rolls his eyes so obviously that Robin can see it across the room, but still he's grinning, eyes looking suspiciously wet. "I didn't have time to shower, we came straight here from the mall." He leans in to hug Steve again, holding on nearly as long as last time.

They break apart, and Steve looks at her, still standing in the doorway like an idiot. If she thought it felt awkward before, that's nothing on right now. "Robin? You okay?"

There's a moment of quiet. Steve's eyes are big and brown and worried, even despite all the bruising. Dustin looks seconds away from literally dragging her over to join them. She has to say something.

"You know, when I was ten I stole my mom's make up and used it all over my face. Giant black eyes of mascara, three different colours of eyeshadow, and bright red lipstick down to my chin." She pauses for a second. "I still looked better than you do right now."

Steve bursts out laughing.

Almost immediately he's clutching his ribs, moaning, but unable to stop a few giggles from escaping. "That hurts, Robin, don't make me laugh with broken ribs."

"How was I supposed to know your ribs were broken?" she says, but she's smiling. He's okay.

He beckons her over and she goes, giving him a very careful hug and then just not letting go. Dustin's arms come up around her and suddenly she's in the middle of a three way hug. It's sticky and smelly and gross, with both their ridiculous hair getting all over her face, but she doesn't mind at all.

Nancy has disappeared behind her, there's flecks of vomit on her shirt from when she threw up earlier, her biggest secret is no longer just hers, and once they get their hands on her, her parents are probably never going to let her leave the house again. Still, in Steve and Dustin's arms, knowing that Erica is safe across town with her brother, Robin can relax for the first time since Steve recognised that stupid music on the tape.

They really are going to be okay.


End file.
